Democracy and Islam in Timbuktu

Democracy and Islam in Timbuktu

Here’s a great story. (Thanks to 8zero8 for sending it over.) It’s about life in Mali, where a tolerant brand of Islam is practiced. Notable:

“As far as Mali is concerned, Islam is a tolerant religion and the proof is here in Timbuktu,” said the city’s mayor, Aly Ould Sidi. “We have all religions. We have Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals. Between us, the Muslims, and other religions, there is no problem. Islam tells us to respect all monotheistic religions.”

But there are warning signs in this new democracy:

Democracy also guarantees freedom of religion, though, and new types of Islam are challenging the traditional faith. In the past three years, ultraconservative Wahhabis from Saudi Arabia have opened 16 mosques in Timbuktu, a development termed disturbing by the city’s mayor, Aly Ould Sidi.

“All these people who are Wahhabi are not citizens of Timbuktu. They come from outside,” he said. “Their presence here has raised a kind of conflict with the people.”

In the last 3 years. Very troubling. Saudia Arabia’s export of Islamic hatred is a large part of the problem.

By the way, this is also an interesting quote:

Last year the GSPC [a Islamist group advocating overthrow of Algeria’s secular government] kidnapped 32 European tourists, mostly Germans, in Algeria and brought some of them across the desert into Mali. Germany reportedly paid a $6 million ransom for their release, vastly enriching the group’s budget for arms and munitions.

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Matt J. Duffy, PhD, is an academic media scholar. His works have been accepted for publication in the Journal of Middle East Media, the Journal of Mass Media Ethics and the Newspaper Research Journal. An assistant professor of communication, Duffy teaches UAE and international media law at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. He is an active member of AUSACE, the Arab-US Association for Communication Educators. Follow him on Twitter.

About the Author

Dr. Matt J. Duffy serves as an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Media at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, USA. He enjoys teaching the art of good journalism, a noble profession and powerful tool for social change. Duffy worked as a journalist for several news outlets including the Boston Herald and the Marietta Daily Journal. He now teaches journalism and media law.
Duffy's research focuses on international approaches to media law. Wolters Kluwer will publish the second edition of his"Media Laws in the United Arab Emirates" in 2017. He has published more than a dozen academic articles and writes occasionally for niche publications. Duffy enjoyed a visit to Pakistan in May 2016 as part of the Fulbright Scholar program from the US State Department. Since 2012, Duffy has served on the board of the Arab-United States Association for Communication Educators, an organization that aims to improve journalism in the Middle East. He also owns Oxford Editing that he started in 2007.